July: Day 30: Holy Apostles Silas and Silouan

July: Day 30: Teaching 1:
Holy Apostles Silas and Silouan
 
(Prison Confinement Should Encourage Repentance That Leads to Salvation, Therefore It Should Be Endured With Patience and Submissiveness to the Will of God.)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Apostles Silas and Silouan, together with the Apostle Paul, preached the word of God. Sent by the Apostles from Jerusalem to Antioch to stop the dispute that arose among the believers concerning the ceremonial law of Moses, Silas from that time did not separate from the Apostle Paul until his arrival in Corinth; together with him, during the apostolic teachings, he endured many sufferings and imprisonment. Upon his arrival in Corinth, he was made bishop, and labored much for the planting of the faith, supporting his preaching with signs and wonders. Silouan was a bishop in the Macedonian city of Thessaloniki, where he suffered much for the faith of Christ and died a martyr.

II. a) Pay attention, brethren, to the sufferings of the Holy Apostles Silas and Paul during their imprisonment in the city of Philippi. For casting out a spirit of divination from a young girl, who was bringing great profit to her master through false prophecies, the Holy Apostle Paul and Silas were imprisoned. The jailer, not satisfied with merely placing them in the "inner prison," also bound their feet in stocks. What did the Holy Apostles do, tormented by beatings, suffering from wounds, unable to find any rest from the painful stocks restraining their legs, at a time when even the unwearied and healthy take to rest? "At midnight, however, Paul and Silas, praying, sang hymns to God." 

Do you see, brethren, that neither prisons nor chains hinder the Apostles from doing their work, from performing night vigils in glory to God, from praying and praising the Lord? Do you hear that the holy prisoners do not even pray for their deliverance from the dungeon, but only glorify and thank the Lord for being deemed worthy to "receive dishonor for the glory of His most holy name"? Such holy prisoners, in the early days of the Church of Christ, filled the dungeons of pagan cities. But for them, the dark prison was the antechamber to the bright and luminous Kingdom of God; the heavy chains were their true wealth and the best adornment. They would not exchange these chains and prisons for any royal palaces or any treasures of the world.

b) If even the innocent and the holy heralds of Christ's teachings endure their imprisonment with such peace and even joy, how much more should our neighbors, who through misfortune find themselves imprisoned and are guilty of various violations of divine and human law, bear their confinement with greater submission to the Divine Providence and heartfelt gratitude? The wise and great Divine Providence, which does not desire the death of the sinner but seeks his repentance through the misfortune of imprisonment, calls them to repentance, so that, having purified themselves from sins here, they may escape eternal torment in hell after death.

Let us present an example of the beneficial effect of prison misfortune and its patient endurance with devotion to the will of the all-good God. Let us enter one prison – in Babylon; Manasseh, the King of Judea, is held there. The son of a pious parent, Hezekiah, who in his early youth inherited the throne of his father, he soon turned away from the path of piety, gave himself over to idolatry, sorcery and all the abominations of the heathen. The example of the King led the people into the same abyss of wickedness. In vain did the Lord call them to repentance and correction through the lips of the Holy Prophets, in vain did the threatening prophetic word thunder, foreshadowing disasters and destruction for him. Manasseh did not heed the voice of the Prophet, he drove away and persecuted the preachers of repentance, and as if in desecration of the name of God he set up pagan idols in the very Temple of the Lord. But the measure of God's long-suffering was fulfilled: "And the Lord brought the captains of the army of the King of Assyria against Jerusalem, and took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him away to Babylon," and there they threw him into prison. Here the unfortunate King was convinced that the word of God is an eternal, immutable truth, that God's justice is eternal and immutable, that as inscrutable is the goodness and long-suffering of God, so terrible and horrible is His wrath. What does the unfortunate King do in prison? "When he was embittered, he sought the face of the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the face of the God of his fathers, and prayed to the Lord" (2 Chronicles 33:11-13). What did he pray for? Not for deliverance from prison, not for the return of the royal throne - no, he recognized himself as unworthy not only of the kingdom, but of temporal life itself; unworthy to enjoy the light of the sun, to see the beauty of heaven. He prayed only for the forgiveness of his sins, that they might not remain unblemished after death, that they might not burden him in eternity and not give him over to eternal condemnation and torment. "My iniquities are multiplied, O Lord, my iniquities are multiplied, and I am not worthy to look up and see the heights of heaven because of the multitude of my iniquities: because I have provoked Your wrath and done evil in Your sight."

The most merciful Lord graciously accepted the repentance of the sinner and not only forgave him his sins, but also returned the kingdom to him. For this reason, Manasseh devoted the rest of his life to erasing all traces of his former wickedness, to labors for the prosperity and safety of the kingdom, to the establishment and spread of piety among his people.

This example, my brethren, is the closest to each of you. It is certainly not the first sin and not the first transgression of the law that brings each one to prison. The merciful Lord has been long-suffering, waiting for voluntary repentance and correction; of course, each has heard many warnings and advice from good and God-fearing people, has often heard the threats of the Lord Himself in the Holy Gospel, and often, perhaps, his own conscience has awakened in another and loudly cried out for repentance. The Lord even allowed another to be freed from prison, in order to test his will and give him the opportunity to come to his senses and repent voluntarily. But behold, the measure of God's long-suffering has been fulfilled: criminals are in prison and in chains.

Be assured at least now that there is an all-seeing Eye, before which nothing is hidden, before which “all is naked and exposed;” that the mercy and goodness of God cannot be turned into a tolerance of iniquity, that there is a pervasive truth that tells sinners: “Unless you repent, you will all perish.”

If the Lord allows someone to escape temporary punishment, will this not be a clear foreshadowing of eternal condemnation? Will not another terrible word of the Lord be fulfilled in this unfortunate person: “Let him who has wronged do wrong again, and let the filthy be defiled again. Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to repay every man according to his deeds. Woe, woe to that man! It would have been better for him if that man had not been born” (Rev. 22:11-12).

III. Therefore, beloved brethren, the one and only way to your deliverance and salvation is the sincere, wholehearted repentance of Manasseh. To recognize the full weight of your iniquities and unrighteousness, to confess them not only before the justice of God, but also before the judgment of man, to resolve to bear for them any temporary punishment in order to be delivered from eternal condemnation - this is how you can gain not only temporary, but also eternal justification and mercy from the Lord! It is better, a thousand times better, to endure all the sorrows in this life, than after death to "fall into the hands of the living God, who has the power to destroy both body and soul in the fiery Gehenna."  

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.